Channel Estimation Algorithms, Complexitiesand LTE Implementation Challenges
Md. Masud Rana
Department of Electronics and Communication EngineeringKhulna University of Engineering and TechnologyKhunla, Bangladesh
Email: mrana928@yahoo.com
Abstract—
The main purposes of the long term evolution(LTE) are substantially improved enduser throughputs,low latency, reduced user equipment (UE) complexity,high data rate, and significantly improved user experiencewith full mobility. LTE uses single carrier-frequencydivision multiple access (SC-FDMA) for uplinktransmission and orthogonal frequency division multipleaccess (OFDMA) for downlink transmission. The majorchallenges for LTE terminal implementation are efficientchannel estimation (CE) method as well as equalization.This paper discusses the basic CE techniques and futuredirection for research in CE fields. Simulation resultsdemonstraters that the linear mean square error (LMMSE)CE method outperforms the least square (LS) CE methodin term of mean square error (MSE) by more than around3dB. Hence, based on a given LTE systems resources andspecifications, a appropriate method among the presentedmethods can be applied for OFDMA systems.
Keywords—
LS, LMMSE, LTE, OFDMA
.I. INTRODUCTIONThe wireless evolution has been stimulated by anexplosive growing demand for a wide variety of highquality of services in voice, video, and data. Thisrigorous demand has made an impact on current andfuture wireless applications, such as digital audio/videobroadcasting, wireless local area networks (WLANs),worldwide interoperability for microwave access(WiMAX), wireless fidelity (WiFi), cognitive radio, and3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) long termevolution (LTE) [1], [2]. LTE uses single carrier-frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) foruplink transmission and orthogonal frequency divisionmultiple access (OFDMA) for downlink transmission[3], [4]. SC-FDMA utilizes single carrier modulationand frequency domain equalization, and has similarperformance and essentially the same overallcomplexity as those of OFDMA system. Theseadvanced applications in which the transmitted signaldisperses over the time and the frequency domains,show the need for highlydeveloped signal processingalgorithms. In particular, one of the main challenges inthe mobile communication is a wireless channel thatsuffers from numerous physical impairments due tomultipath propagation, interference from other users orlayers, and the time selectivity of a channel [5-9].Many CE techniques have already been proposed forthe LTE OFDMA systems. The simple least square (LS)algorithm, which is independent of the channel model,is commonly used in CE [10-14]. But the radio channelis time-variant; hence a method has to be found in orderto perform estimation in a time-varying channel. Theminimum mean-squared error (MMSE) estimate hasbeen shown to be better than the LS estimate for CE inwireless communication systems [15]. The importantproblem of the MMSE estimate is its highcomputational complexity, which grows exponentiallywith inspection samples [16]. In [17], a low rank approximation is applied to a linear MMSE (LMMSE)estimator that employs the correlations of the channel.To further improve the system performance, Wienerestimation has been investigated [18]. Although itexhibits the best performance among the existing linearalgorithms, it requires accurate knowledge of secondorder channel statistics, which is not always feasible at amobile receiver. Also, this scheme requires highercomplexity.This paper outlines the developments of the LTEOFDMA systems, and highlights some upcomingchallenges, where advanced signal processing couldplay a important role in resolving them. Specifically, weinvestigates various types of CE techniques such as LS,and LMMSE CE methods and find out which is themore efficient one. The performance is measured interms computational complexity, and mean square error(MSE). Simulation results shows that the LMMSE CEalgorithm outperforms the existing LS CE in term of MSE by more than around 3dB. Hence, based on agiven LTE systems resources and specifications, aappropriate method among the presented methods canbe applied.The rest of the paper is organized as follows. We givea brief overview of the wireless communication systemsin section II. The classification of CE is described insection III. The LS and LMMSE CE methods aredescribes in section IV and its performance are analyzedin section V. In section VI, we highlight the challengesfor LTE terminal implementation. Finally, someconclusions are made in section VII.The following notations are used in this paper: boldface lower and upper case letters are used to representvectors and matrices respectively. Superscripts
T
X
(IJCSIS) International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security,Vol. 8, No. 8, November 201071http://sites.google.com/site/ijcsis/ISSN 1947-5500
+
X
denote the transpose and congugate transpose of the
X
, and
I
is the identity matrix.II. COMMUNICATION SYSTEMSNowadays, cellular mobile phones have become animportant tool and part of daily life. In the last decade,cellular systems have experienced fast development andthere are currently about two billion users over theworld [6]. Mobile penetration is based on population,pay TV and broadband is households.Fig. 1 Mobile is the key growth platform.The idea of cellular mobile communications is todivide large zones into small cells, and it can provideradio coverage over a wider area than the area of onecell. This concept was developed by researchers at AT& T Bell laboratories during the 1950s and 1960s. Theinitial cellular system was created by Nippon telephone& telegraph (NTT) in Japan, 1979. From then on, thecellular mobile communication has evolved.The mobile communication systems are frequentlyclassified as different generations depending of theservice offered. The first generation (1G) comprises theanalog communication techniques, and it was mainlybuilt on frequency modulation (FM) and frequencydivision multiple accesses (FDMA). Digitalcommunication techniques appeared in the secondgeneration (2G) systems, and main access schemes aretime division multiple access (TDMA) and codedivision multiple access (CDMA). The two mostcommonly accepted 2G systems are global system formobile (GSM) and interim standard-95 (IS-95). Thesesystems mostly offer speech communication, but alsodata communication limited to rather low transmissionrates [7]. The concept of the third generation (3G)system started operations on October, 2002 in Japan.The 3GPP members started a feasibility study on theenhancement of the universal terrestrial radio access(UTRA) in December 2004, to improve the mobilephone standard to cope with future requirements. Thisproject was called LTE [5], [8]. 3GPP LTE uses SC-FDMA for uplink transmission and OFDMA fordownlink transmission [9]. Fig. 2 summarizes thecellular mobile communication systems and its accessschemes [10].Fig.2 (a): Evolution path in mobile communicationsystems.Fig. 2 (b) Multiple access schemes.From the beginning wireless communications there isa high demand for realistic mobile fading channels. Themotive for this significance is that efficient channelmodels are necessary for the investigation, design, anddeployment of wireless communication system forreliable transfer of information between two parties.Correct channel models are also important for testing,parameter optimization, and performance evolution of wireless communication systems. The performance andcomplexity of signal processing algorithms, transceiver
200420052006200720082009201020110102030405060User
P e n e t r a t i o n p e r c e n t a g e
MobileTotal pay TVBroadband
(IJCSIS) International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security,Vol. 8, No. 8, November 201072http://sites.google.com/site/ijcsis/ISSN 1947-5500
designs, and smart antennas, employed in futurewireless communication systems, are highly dependenton design methods used to model mobile fadingchannels. The effect of the channel on the transmittedinformation must be estimated in order to recover thetransmitted information correctly [11].III. CLASSIFICATION OF CEChannel can be described everything from thesource to the destination of a radio signal. Thisincludes the physical medium between the transmitterand the receiver through which the radio signalpropagates. On the other hand, CE is the process of characterizing the effect of the physical channel on theinput sequence. It can be employed for the purpose of detecting received signal, improve signal to noise ratio(SNR), channel equalization, reduced ISI, mobilelocalization, and improved system performance [8], [9].In general, both iterative and noniterative CEtechniques can be divided into three categories such asthe training CE, blind CE, and semi-blind CE [10],[21].Fig. 3 Outline of the CE.A.
Taining CEThe training CE algorithm requires probe sequences;the receiver can use this probe sequence to reconstructthe transmitted waveform [10]. It has the advantage of being used in any radio communications system quiteeasily. Even if this is the most popular CE method, itstill has its drawbacks. The drawback of trainingsequence methods is that the probe sequence occupiesvaluable bandwidth, reducing the throughput of thecommunication system. This scheme also suffers due tothe fact that most communication systems sendinformation lumped frames. It is only after the receipt of the entire frame that the channel estimate can bereconstructed from the embedded probe sequence. Since,the coherence time of the channel might be smaller thanthe frame time, for rapid fading channels this CE mightnot be sufficient. Training symbols can be placed eitherat the beginning of each burst as a preamble or regularlythrough the burst [21]. Training sequences aretransmitted at certain positions of the OFDMAfrequency time pattern, in its place of data as shown inFig. 4. An amount of training sequences is raise theaccuracy of CE, but it is reduces the system efficiency,because there isn’t any new information in the trainingsymbols.Fig. 4 Positions of data and pilot symbols.B. Blind CEA blind CE method requires no training sequences[13]. They exploit certain underlying mathematicalinformation regarding the type of data being transmitted.These CE methods might be bandwidth efficient butstill have their own downfalls. These methods areenormously computationally intensive and convergenceis slow [21]. A popular category of blind CE method isdecision directed algorithms. These methods rely uponthe demodulated and detected signal at the receiver toreform the transmitted signal. The drawback of theseCE algorithm is that a bit error at the receiver is causethe construction of an erroneous transmitted sequence.C. Semi-blind CESemi-blind CE methods are used a combination of data aided and blind methods [11]. Since, there are alarge number of channel coefficients, a large number of pilot symbols may be required. It would result in adecrease of data throughput. To avoid it, the semi-blindCE methods with fewer pilot symbols can be used. As aresult, improve system performance in compared withusing equal pilots in LS method. Moreover, there is atrend to use superimposition of pilot and data symbols.In fact, these methods by superimposing pilot and datasymbols in the same time economize the systembandwidth. But in superimposed training sequencescheme, there is disadvantage due to the interference of information data. So, an accurate CE has been one of the most important issues for reliable mobilecommunication systems. So, CE can be performed bymany ways inserting pilot tones into each OFDMAsymbol with a specific period or blind CE.
(IJCSIS) International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security,Vol. 8, No. 8, November 201073http://sites.google.com/site/ijcsis/ISSN 1947-5500
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Channel Estimation Algorithms, Complexities and LTE Implementation Challenges
The main purposes of the long term evolution (LTE) are substantially improved enduser throughputs, low latency, reduced user equipment (UE) complexity, high data rate, and significantly improved user experience with full mobility. LTE uses single carrier-frequency…
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